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Gerrard slams floundering Reds
by JP Lonergan, 27 February 2008
Steven Gerrard has told his Liverpool team-mates that even if they were to repeat their Champions League win of 2005 this season, they would still not make up for their awful showing in The Premier League.
The Reds are well behind their three ‘Big Four’ rivals and rather than battling for the title, they are currently embroiled in a battle for fourth-spot with Merseyside rivals Everton and Aston Villa, as well as a number of others.
That form was forgotten when they taught Inter a lesson in last week’s Champions League last 16 first leg clash, but Gerrard says however the team fares in Europe, the season will end a disappointment.
"You don't get any prizes in football for finishing in second place, never mind fourth,” said the England midfield dynamo.
"I don't think that the fans would accept fourth as an accomplishment and for me it's not nearly good enough,” he added in an LFC magazine interview.
"We need to improve dramatically and even if we do finish fourth, it doesn't mean we have had a good season.
"In the position we find ourselves now, fourth is the least that is acceptable. But we have bigger ambitions than that.
"The only way we can fulfil those ambitions is in the Champions League. And I am not going to pretend that even winning that trophy - and we are a long way away from it at the moment - will make up for the disappointment of the league campaign.
"I'm pretty gutted every time I look at the table and see the gap between us and Arsenal at the top, and even the gap between us and [Manchester United and Cheslea in] second and third.
"We believed we had the players to challenge for the title, and we wanted that one more than any other trophy available to us. I still believe we have the squad to be a hell of a lot more competitive than we are right now.
"I'm getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again. W e can't keep talking about next season all the time. There are only so many times you can say it and believe it. Sooner or later we have to make one season the season we make it happen and do the talking on the pitch.
"We need to make people believe it. I'm 27 now, I don't want to be talking about 'next season' for Liverpool when I'm 32.
"Only we can make this season a success now. We'd like to finish fourth and win the European Cup again.
"But the demands of being a Liverpool player, the expectations that come with the privilege of pulling on that jersey mean we've got to improve.
"You make your own luck, shape your own destiny. And now we soon have massive games at Manchester United and Arsenal, knowing we can't win the league.
"We are not bothered about whether we have an impact on the title race we're not in. But winning at both those places would send out a message for next season. That would lay down a marker that no-one would ignore."